Free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya

2013 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodrigo Gutiérrez-Bravo
Keyword(s):  
Structural Properties ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Yucatan Peninsula ◽  
Prepositional Phrase ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Unified Description

AbstractThis paper presents an analysis and description of the syntax of free relative clauses in Yucatec Maya, the Mayan language spoken in the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. The description and analysis focus on two structural properties of these free relative clauses; a) the internal nature of the relative pronoun, and, b) the absence of matching effects observed in Yucatec free relatives when a prepositional phrase is relativized. I show that these two phenomena receive a unified description in an analysis where Yucatec, in contrast with a language like English, allows the head of the noun phrase to be null.

scholarly journals Headless Relative Clauses in Pesh

2021 ◽  
pp. 509-546
Author(s):  
Claudine Chamoreau
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Noun Phrases ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Left Edge ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
The Right ◽  
Almost All

The aim of this study is to describe the two main kinds of headless relative clauses that are attested in Pesh, a Chibchan language spoken in Honduras: free relative clauses, which use a wh-word that functions as a relative pronoun at their left edge and a subordinator at their right edge, and headless relative clauses, which lack a wh- word but show a case marker or the topic marker at the right edge of the clause. The first type is less frequently attested in the natural corpus this study relies on, although the corpus does contain various instances of maximal, existential, and free-choice free relative clauses. Each of the constructions is distinguished by features of the wh-word and/or by certain restrictions regarding the tense of the verb in headless relative clauses or the type of verb in matrix clauses. The second type of headless relative clause, the ones that do not use a wh-expression, are much more frequent in the corpus and behave like headed relative clauses that lack a wh-expression. They are like noun phrases marked by a phrase-final case marker or the topic maker. The case or topic markers are used for light-headed relative clauses and for almost all types of maximal headless relative clause that have neither a light head nor a wh-expression, in contrast to maximal free relatives, in which only locative wh-words occur.

scholarly journals Whatever His Arguments, Whatever Relatives Are Not Free Relatives: A Reply to Caponigro’s Reply

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-50
Author(s):  
Caterina Donati ◽  
Francesca Foppolo ◽  
Ingrid Konrad ◽  
Carlo Cecchetto
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Structure Theory ◽  
Controlled Experiments ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Garden Variety ◽  
Free Relative

This is a reply to Caponigro 2019, which argues that the phrase structure theory proposed by Donati and Cecchetto (2011; 2015) falls short of accounting for the attested patterns of free relative clauses. Caponigro questions the reliability of the data supporting D&C’s hypothesis that ever-relatives introduced by a phrase ( ever+NP relatives) should not be assimilated to free relatives. This paper reports the results of 4 controlled experiments in English and Italian and discusses five properties that set apart free relatives from full relatives (occurrence with a complementizer, occurrence with a relative pronoun, infinitival use, absolute use, adverbial use). Crucially, ever+NP relatives do not pattern like free relatives in any of these five domains, either in Italian or in English. This clearly shows that ever-relatives are not a counterexample against D&C’s phrase structure theory. Another potential counterexample, Romanian free relatives, is also discussed. As for the analysis of ever+NP relatives, in Italian they are shown to be garden variety headed relatives, while in English they are headed relatives that involve a D to D movement which is responsible for the syntactic formation of the complex determiner what+ ever.

Danish non-specific free relatives

2014 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-27
Author(s):  
Anne Bjerre
Keyword(s):  
Phrase Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Phrase Structure Grammar ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative

Within the Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG) community, one part of the Base Hypothesis concerning free relatives proposed by Bresnan & Grimshaw (1978) has gained wide support, namely that free relatives are headed by the wh-phrase. The second part of the hypothesis is that the wh-phrase is base-generated, and this has not gained support. In this paper, we will consider a subset of free relative constructions, i.e. non-specific free relatives, and provide support for this second part, restated in HPSG terms as a claim that there is no filler–gap relation between a free relative pronoun filler and a gap in the sister clause of the free relative pronoun.

Headless Relative Clauses in Ch'ol

2021 ◽  
pp. 362-402
Author(s):  
Juan Jesús Vázquez Álvarez ◽  
Jessica Coon
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
The State ◽  
The Other ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Relative Structure

This chapter surveys headless relative clauses in Ch’ol, a Mayan language spoken in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico. Ch’ol is rare among Mayan languages in possessing a special morpheme found with relativized nouns, the second position clitic = bä. While this morpheme is required for relativized argument nouns, it is not present in free relatives, which suggests a different derivation for this class of construction. Maximal (definite) and existential (indefinite) free relatives are described. They both make use of a fronted wh-expression and lack the morpheme = bä. Maximal and existential free relatives in Ch’ol appear identical to one another in structure. Following existing studies on other languages, it is argued that the different interpretations of these clauses are a result of the environments in which they appear. Finally, Ch’ol has two different types of constructions in which a determiner element is followed by a headless relative: one corresponding to the = bä structure and one corresponding to the free relative structure. The former is proposed to be a regular headed relative clause with an unpronounced head, as has elsewhere been argued for Yucatec. The latter, on the other hand, corresponds to a free relative structure with an added determiner element.

Headless Relative Clauses in Yucatec Maya

2021 ◽  
pp. 444-474
Author(s):  
Scott AnderBois ◽  
Miguel Oscar Chan Dzul
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Head Noun ◽  
Indigenous Language ◽  
Yucatec Maya ◽  
Southern Mexico ◽  
Syntactic Form ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Syntactic Context

This chapter surveys headless relative clauses (i.e. ones with no overt head noun) in Yucatec Maya, an indigenous language of southern Mexico. For Indo-European languages, discussion of such constructions has focused on “free relative clauses”—those with only a bare wh-word in place of a head—and to a lesser extent, “light-headed” relative clauses⎯those with a dedicated set of pronominal elements in place of a head noun. In contrast, Yucatec Maya is shown to allow for four different kinds of surface headless relative clause forms depending on the presence or absence of a wh-word and the presence or absence of a determiner, quantifier, or other D-element. With respect to free relative clauses, whereas many more well-studied Indo-European languages have morpho-syntactically distinct constructions for definite and indefinite free relative clauses (e.g. with an infinitive or subjunctive form in the latter case), Yucatec Maya is shown to have a single morpho-syntactic form whose (in)definiteness is determined by syntactic context.

scholarly journals English relative clauses in a cross-Germanic perspective

Nordlyd ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-115
Author(s):  
Julia Bacskai-Atkari
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
West Germanic ◽  
Case System ◽  
German Dialects ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Gender System ◽  
Germanic Languages

The article talk examines the distribution of relativising strategies in English in a cross-Germanic perspective, arguing that English is quite unique among Germanic languages both regarding the number of available options and their distribution. The differences from other Germanic languages (both West Germanic and Scandinavian) are primarily due to the historical changes affecting the case and gender system in English more generally. The loss of case and gender on the original singular neuter relative pronoun facilitated its reanalysis as a complementiser. The effect of the case system can also be observed in properties that are not evidently related to case. Specifically, choice between the pronoun strategy and the complementiser strategy is known to show differences according to the Noun Phrase Accessibility Hierarchy. While English shows a subject vs. oblique distinction in this respect, matching its nominative/oblique case system, German dialects show a subject/direct object vs. oblique distinction, matching the nominative/accusative/oblique case setting in the language. The particular setting in English is thus not dependent on e.g. a single parameter but on various factors that are otherwise present in other Germanic languages as well, and it is ultimately the complex interplay of these factors that results in the particular setup.

On amharic Relative Clauses

1972 ◽  
Vol 35 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-513 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hailu Fulass
Keyword(s):  
Surface Structure ◽  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Subject Position ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Relative Pronoun ◽  
Main Verb ◽  
The Right

In what follows I would like to discuss the structure of Amharic relative clauses. In the course of the discussion, I would like to make the following three claims which I will attempt to substantiate in turn. First, I believe that relativization is a kind of pronominalization and, consequently, the particle yä- that is attached to the main verb (or its auxiliary) of the relative clause is not a relative pronoun. Second, I maintain that the ‘yä- clause’ in subject position in Amharic cleft sentences is also a relative clause with an unspecified element as its head. My third claim is that Amharic genitive phrases originate from relative clauses and that the noun (phrase) in the genitive phrase to which the particle yä- is attached in surface structure is governed by a preposition in underlying structure, and the head of a genitive phrase is the head of the under-lying relative clause. In this connexion, I also argue that there is a rule in Amharic which moves the particle yä- (to the right) over, at least, one constituent.

scholarly journals KNOWLEDGE-HOW: INTERROGATIVES AND FREE RELATIVES

Episteme ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-201
Author(s):  
Joshua Habgood-Coote
Keyword(s):  
Noun Phrase ◽  
Prima Facie ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Number Of Authors

ABSTRACTIt has been widely accepted since Stanley and Williamson (2001) that the only linguistically acceptable semantic treatments for sentences of the form ‘S knows how to V’ involve treating the wh-complement ‘how to V’ as an interrogative phrase, denoting a set of propositions. Recently a number of authors have suggested that the ‘how to V’ phrase denotes not a proposition, but an object. This view points toward a prima facie plausible non-propositional semantics for knowledge-how, which treats ‘how to V’ as a free relative noun phrase. In this paper I argue that the free relative semantics is implausible. I show that linguistic phenomena which seem to support a free relative semantics can be explained by the supporter of an interrogative semantics, and demonstrate that standard linguistic tests strongly suggest that ‘how to V’ has an interrogative reading, and no free relative reading.

scholarly journals Free relatives in Maltese

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 115-159
Author(s):  
Louisa Sadler ◽  
Maris Camilleri
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Previous Literature ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Identical Type ◽  
Existential Construction

Abstract This paper makes a contribution to our understanding of free relative clauses (frcs) in Maltese, in particular so-called plain, standard or non -ever free relative clauses. We demonstrate that such frcs are interpreted as definites, consistent with the findings in much previous literature on other languages. However, we also show that Maltese has not one but two strategies for plain (realis or definite) frcs: alongside frcs formed using a wh-word we also find frcs introduced by the complementising element li, inconsistent with the seemingly widespread assumption that frcs necessarily involve a wh-word. Both strategies give rise to definite interpretations. Additionally, we argue that definite or realis wh-frcs are to be distinguished from a different (but apparently structurally identical) type, the so-called irrealis free relative clause or modal existential construction, which has not been previously identified for Maltese. We show that this subset of free relatives exhibit the properties associated with the modal existential construction crosslinguistically. We then demonstrate the existence of a subtype of headed relative clauses in Maltese which also share a number of the properties which we identify in the Maltese modal existential construction.

scholarly journals A further argument for a syncretic analysis of DOM and dative in Spanish

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 62-73
Author(s):  
Carlos Muñoz Pérez
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clauses ◽  
Differential Object Marking ◽  
Free Relatives ◽  
Dative Case ◽  
Case Marker ◽  
Free Relative ◽  
Left Dislocation ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Repairing Effect ◽  
Object Marking

AbstractThis paper offers an argument to analyse the Spanish form /a/ as a syncretic case marker for accusative differential object marking (dom) and dative. The literature on free relative clauses has established that syncretism allows the repair of feature mismatches arising from contradictory selectional requirements between the matrix and the embedded predicates. By combining clitic left dislocation constructions (CLLD) and free relatives, it is shown here that dom and dative grant the same repairing effect in Spanish, so it follows that they must be syncretic categories. The same type of configuration distinguishes the directional preposition a and the dative case marker, which is taken to indicate that these elements are mere homophones in the language. Furthermore, an analysis of the repairing effect of syncretism is offered.

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